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The Two-Way

In Interview, John Kerry Says He Was Hired Before Rice Withdrew

By Eyder Peralta

The next Secretary of State John Kerry.

Saul Loeb AFP/Getty Images

For those of you who keep up with the details of Washington machinations. Here's a bit of surprising news: The next Secretary of State John Kerry told The Boston Globe that President Obama offered him the State gig a week before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice removed her name from consideration.

"He called me, actually a week before Susan got out of the thing," Kerry told the newspaper "He called me and said, 'You're my choice. I want you to do this.' He asked me to keep it quiet. I did. I sat on it."

That means that at least some of the hand-wringing over Rice and whether President Obama would go to the mat with Republican senators over a potential Rice nomination was probably for naught.

The Washington Post notes that by the time Obama handed Kerry the job, "Rice had endured three weeks of public vetting and met with several of her Republican critics in an attempt to win them over."